If I build a mill and, falling sick, cannot use it, it is fair that he
who does use it shall pay me for my sacrifice in building it. If I
forego possible satisfactions of any kind, those whom I permit to enjoy
them should recompense me. And that is interest. Its foundation as a
right rests not only on those natural sentiments of justice with which
the normal man everywhere is endowed and behind which we cannot go, but
on the interest of Society to encourage the creation of savings funds to
be employed for the benefit of Society.

Profits - Private profit is far less a private right than a public
necessity. Its absence would involve a waste which Society could not
endure. With individual operations controlled by fallible men enormous
waste is inevitable. It is essential to Society that this waste be
minimized. No industrial or commercial enterprise can go on without
risk. Profit is the compensation for risk. One of the things which I
believe, but which cannot be proved, is that from the dawn of history
losses to individuals by which Society gained have exceeded profits to
individuals, and the excess of these losses is the Social accumulation,
increased, of course, by residues left after individuals have got what
they could. Whitney died poor, but mankind has the cotton-gin. Bell died
rich, but there is a profit to mankind in the telephone. Socialists
propose to assume risks and absorb profits. I do not believe Society
could afford this. I am profoundly convinced that under the Socialist
program the inevitable waste would be so enormously increased as to
result in disaster approaching a Social cataclysm. This is an old
argument whose validity Socialists scout. Nevertheless I believe it
sound. The number of these whose intellectual and physical strength is
sufficient for the wisest direction of great enterprises is very small.
Some who are interested in our great industrial trusts are said to carry
heavy insurance on the life of Mr. Morgan, lest he die and leave no